I said Americans loved concentration camps in the 1940s, and they surely did.

Just because, at the time, there may have been worse concentration camps elsewhere, does not negate the fact that Americans loved them, or the fact that they existed right here (there were a few in California).

"As a member of President Roosevelt's administration, I saw the United States Army give way to mass hysteria over the Japanese...Crowded into cars like cattle, these hapless people were hurried away to hastily constructed and thoroughly inadequate concentration camps, with soldiers with nervous muskets on guard, in the great American desert. We gave the fancy name of 'relocation centers' to these dust bowls, but they were concentration camps nonetheless."
—Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, Washington Evening Star, September 23, 1946

Or do you believe in some sort of revisionist history, that Americans in the 1940s weren't forcibly relocated to concentration camps solely on account of their race?

Concentration camps were (at least in recent history) a british invention. During the boeren war in South Africa they rounded up and locked up the civilian population in camps, both as hostages and as an attempt to reduce the guerilla attacks by the boeren against their forces.
As such Tudamorf is correct in saying that what the USA did during WW2 to its citizens with Japanese ancentry was locking them up in concentration camps.

However, since knowledge what happened to Jews (and assorted other groups) in Germany and Poland during WW2 became common, the term 'concentration camp' has taken on an entirely different meaning. No longer does it stand for camps were certain group(s) of people were removed from the general population and kept under close guard, but rather it became a place where people were locked up until they could be murdered.
Under this meaning of the term what the Americans did to the Japanese descendants in their population most emphatically does NOT qualify as locking them up in concentration camps.

Now if Tuda can bring himself to calling them 'internment camps' we can put an end to a rather pointless discussion that has the potential to be extremely hostile. Or Fyyr can accept that the meaning of the words concentration camps has changed and Tuda's usage of them is correct when applied to the pre WW2 timeframe.

erianaiel wrote:However, since knowledge what happened to Jews (and assorted other groups) in Germany and Poland during WW2 became common, the term 'concentration camp' has taken on an entirely different meaning. No longer does it stand for camps were certain group(s) of people were removed from the general population and kept under close guard, but rather it became a place where people were locked up until they could be murdered.

So by your definition, Auschwitz wasn't a "concentration camp" until they started killing the inhabitants?

Ridiculous. Of course it was a concentration camp; it was designed to be that way from the beginning. Just like the American camps.

erianaiel wrote:Under this meaning of the term what the Americans did to the Japanese descendants in their population most emphatically does NOT qualify as locking them up in concentration camps.

It's an unfair comparison, since the American camps were newer. If atomic weapons hadn't been developed and the war had lasted for another 5-10 years, those camps would have started looking a lot different. European camps/ghettos weren't so bad at the beginning either.

Just look at what happened at Abu Ghraib, and that's in modern times when concentration camps have fallen out of favor with the public.

He does it to himself in the same thread, I wouldn't be too concerned that he does it to you.

T: I did not say that Internment Camps and Concentration Camps are the same.
T: They are exactly the same.

I don't even know why I posted this thread, now. Tudamorf plays Devil's Advocate against himself twice, and forgets what side he's on. I know I am not going to take the effort to figure out what he means, if he doesn't.